pyrocide

Y'know those days that start terrible but then turn magical? Skype interview with BU-MCBB. I'm so happy.

Called one of my programs to check on my app, discovered that the Grad office didn't forward my rec letters to the Bio dept with the rest of my application even though they were all in before I even submitted the app. I'm so happy they're still going to review my application. Finding out one of your last two applications has been compromised: feels, man. So many feels.

Anyone hear from BU-MCBB or Tufts' Biology dept. this week? (All I'm hearing are crickets and I can't help but start to worry. )

V5 precise for everything. Also, I am a fiend when it comes to using colors. Black for lecture, 7-pack for text book review: red for headers, blue for equations, green for definitions, purple for worked out examples, black for general notes, and pink for arrows connecting related topics/page numbers. It makes my study sheets terribly aesthetic. I've even seriously considered getting my most compact and colorful cheat sheets framed. Also, A big hot coffee usually only lasts me a few hours, but a small iced coffee and a chocolate glazed doughnut from Dunkin Donuts can keep me up for studying for a whole night. It's a strange little conditioned response, but it gets me by.

I don't know you, but if I met you in real life, I'd totally want to be your friend.

Continue working my lab tech job and finish up the last few experiments, and hopefully get that manuscript out. Rebuild my tiny power wheels gokart, race it all over the midwest. Maybe go on a field trip with my boy. Move to Boston in August (even if this app cycle doesn't work out for me.) Then start grad school or get another job and try again next fall.

I have been idly collecting really fancy blazers off clearance racks since high school, and a grad school interview will finally give me a chance to wear the nice ones. (Dear grad schools: if you could humor my fashion indulgence with an interview invite, I'd be ever so happy.)

I took the Biochem/Cell/Molec bio GRE last October. A subject test was either required or strongly recommended by most (if not all) of my apps, and I took the Biochem specifically since it seemed more tailored to my research interests (i.e., had less plants and ecology questions.) I did okay, but that test was just beastly, and I always wondered if taking the standard Bio GRE would have gone better, or would have been preferred by adcomms. Did any other of you biology kids seriously consider/choose to take the BCM test over the standard Biology test?

Official rejection email from UW-MCB just came in. I knew it was coming, still stings anyways.

1. Snarky tenured molec bio professor lady: Currently working on this one, hopeful for a PhD admittance this app season. 2. Tattoo Artist: I'm actually seriously considering this for my plan B. I can rock the arts and/or copy pretty much any image, and I've already got the blood-bourne pathogens training in! I'd also love how many people I'd get to meet. 3. Science History Writer/Biographer: I'd need more writing experience/qualifications, but I just love the characters of old famous scientists and how they arrived at their discoveries. 4. Underground/anonymous graffiti artist: I'm terrible with spray paint though.. :/

1.) What are you interested in researching? What scientific quesiton/problem most intrigues you? I've been working full-time as a lab tech in a heart development lab for the last 2 years. In my first project I was introduced to cardiomyocyte (CM) differentiation techniques, and we focused a lot on growth factor modulation. That didn't really catch my fancy, but my next project involved conditionally deleting a protein in mouse CMs that is involved in very early development, dsDNA repair, and histone modification. That's been really awesome--it has introduced me to heart tissue remodeling, CM cell cycling/apoptosis pathways, and of course dsDNA mechanisms, which I've been geeking out about since college. Mostly I'm looking for a lab that looks at CM responses in both developing and damaged tissue with a stronger emphasis on the molecular (and maybe even some genetic) biology of CMs. Also, as I mentioned before, I'm terribly intrigued by elucidating physical dsDNA mechanims and the big enzyme complexes involved (i.e., DNA replication, homologous recombination, dsDNA repair). I'd be so excited if I could get myself a rotation in that kind of lab. 2.) What do you think is the biggest challenge facing researchers today (i.e. open publication vs. journals like Nature; securing funding, lack of scientific literacy, etc.) Money. There's no money for grants, no money for new researchers, and no money for new grad students. 3.) What's your favorite microbe, and why? (Or ecosystem, or organism, or whatever) My senior project was on Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is your pretty standard microbe, I guess. It turns blue sometimes, which is pretty cool. C. elegans is pretty fun--rol mutants are the best. Stem cells are fussy monsters. I have to say I like mice the best, mostly because I've got the dexterous fingers to handle the more complex procedures mice often require. 4.) Favorite lab technique? One that was hardest to master? Favorite: adult cardiomyocyte isolation. I'm proud to say I can keep my hands still enough to successfully perform mouse heart cannulations. Hardest: For some reason I just had the worst time mastering western blotting. Back in college I completely botched the WB section of the Intro Bio Lab, and I wasn't given much of a protocol when I had to do it in my heart research lab. Troubleshot everything before realizing my chemiluminescent detection reagent a coworker recommended wasn't potent enough. That was rough. 5.) Thing you're proudest of accomplishing in the lab? Biggest screw-up you ever had in lab? Proudest accomplishment: early in my time at the heart lab, the lab just could not get its heart differentiations to work. Just.. nothing. Not even early mes-endoderm markers (growth factor quality control is terrible and it should feel terrible. ><) Bossman had me try out a new protocol, and I was the first to get a cardiomyocyte + culture the lab had seen in like a year. The cells didn't even beat, but it still felt like Christmas. Biggest screw up: On my first neonatal cardiomyocyte isolation ever, I tried a Percoll separation (reduces fibroblasts and other small cells from your sample) since that is what the grad student who had the project before me used to reduce fibroblasts. Before I ran the Percoll, I had a beautiful yield of cells, but lost every single one of them after spinning down the column. Turns out there was a miscommunication and bossman did not want me to run the Percoll--turns out he hates using the Percoll column since it usually reduces yield something fierce. CM isolation kits are very expensive and he was very upset with me for a while after that. He still brings it up whenever I have a new protocol to learn.

I was getting frustrated with the wait and called one of my schools to ask if they had any more interviews going out. They told me my status and now I feel dejected and sad and would just like to curl up with a pint of sorbet. -.-

Ughh UW-MCB, first there are results for interviews yesterday, and now I see someone posted a rejection. You toy with my feelings so, but I will put up with it anyways.

Hah, I'm tempted to do the same thing. -.-

Whoaaa, I thought they pick people for interviews in one go and mail rejections in March or something. Was it personalized or a mass email, if you don't mind me asking?

Hay Here is a happy one: and here is a detached and meditative one:

Medical College of Wisconsin has a Jan 15th deadline for their Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences interdisciplinary program, and that's only the "Priority Deadline."

Sys88, I see you are also applying to UW MCB. Do you know if they've sent all their interviews? Results page has a few in mid December but that's all I know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxGRhd_iWuE&feature=youtu.be This got me through those long nights of GRE studying/SOP writing, and it's still helping me when I'm flailing from grad school anxieties. Never give up, you beautiful people!

Ping Cardiomyocyte development/cell cycling, weee!

Oh man, first year or two of college I had a lot of problems with this. It made friendships feel fake and ultimately made life pretty lonely. I realized it was due to improper thinking and judgement, but it didn't really crystallize for me until I found this quote by Osho: It was like.. there are people who are humans, just like me, and I know nothing about their circumstances, goals, fears... what right do I have to judge? Now whenever I catch myself being needlessly judgmental I automatically think of this perspective and it puts me right back in line. Following this mantra has made me a much more tolerable human, and I am happy from how it has shaped me into the person I am today. All in all, I think achieving true empathy is a milestone that every late teen-early 20s kid will reach. Some learn from it and grow, some don't. So you shouldn't feel all that bad about your past behavior, be glad that you have recognized it as a flaw in your character and know that you have enough self-awareness and drive to improve your future interactions with all the new people you meet.

Aww Pol, I like your style. I've heard of a few of these bands here but there are many I haven't, and now you've sent me on a music spree. You ever listen to Pelican? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOAzNXoSJ1A

Awww yeah Boston programs! I'm applying to BU-MCBB, Harvard-BBS, and the standard Tufts bio dept. For that last one, well, IHTFP. <3 I'm still waiting for responses too, hopefully see you during one of the interview weekends!